ppear, and the boy to return to tell him the conditions on which his
captivity might be ended. The information given, the goblin again
replaced the true son; but the good priest was now able to deal
effectually with the matter. The imp was accordingly dipped thrice in
Lough Lane (a small lake in the eastern part of Westmeath), when "a curl
came on the water, and up from the deep came the naked form of the boy,
who walked on the water to meet his father on shore. The father wrapped
his overcoat about his son, and commenced his homeward march,
accompanied by a line of soldiers, who also came out of the lake. The
boy's mother was enjoined not to speak until the rescuing party would
reach home. She accidentally spoke; and immediately the son dropped a
tear, and forced himself out of his father's arms, piteously exclaiming:
'Father, father, my mother spoke! You cannot keep me. I must go.' He
disappeared, and, reaching home, the father found the sprite again on
the hearth." The ghostly father's services were called into requisition
a second time; and better luck awaited an effort under his direction
after the performance of a second miracle like the first. For this time
the mother succeeded in holding her tongue, notwithstanding that at
every stream on the way home from the lake the car on which the boy was
carried was upset, and he himself fainted.[100] This is declared to have
happened no longer ago than the year 1869. The writer, apparently a
pious Roman Catholic, who vouches for the fact, probably never heard the
touching tale of Orpheus and Eurydice.

The foregoing story, as well as some of those previously mentioned,
shows that fairy depredations were by no means confined to babes and
young children. Indeed adults were often carried off; and, although this
chapter is already far too long, I cannot close it without briefly
examining a few such cases. Putting aside those, then, in which boys or
young men have been taken, as already sufficiently discussed, all the
other cases of robbery, as distinguished from seduction or illusion, are
concerned with matrons. The elfin race were supposed to be on the watch
for unchurched or unsained mothers to have the benefit of their milk. In
one instance the captive was reputed to have freed herself by promising
in exchange her husband's best mare under milk, which was retained by
the captors until it was exhausted and almost dead. More usually the
story relates that a piece of wood is c